Here's my first garment. It's made of cotton lawn (from Dharma Trading) and was inspired by a vintage top I saw on Etsy. The skirt was made previously and took "forever" to scale down from the commercial pattern. So I really appreciate how easy and fun it is to use the half-scale feature in PMBx5!

I recently bought PMBx5 and am also new to pattern drafting software. I've been working with customer service (who have been wonderful!) on my measurements and first fit garment. In the meantime, I've been reading these forums and playing around with Style Editor - and as you can see, half-scaled patterns.

nsummerlin, thanks! I have to give Karen in technical support the credit, though. She's been helping me a lot with my fit garment and settings. Also, the forums and wiki here are amazing. There's tons of information - people have been really generous and sharing.

Half-scale is a pattern that is reduced by one half. So instead of a measurement of 38" around the hips, you'd have 19" and so on. PMBx5 has an option, when you're ready to print, to scale it down to one-half and even one-fourth. It's fun because they always look so cute!

It's a style I'd like to try again but next time I'll make some changes. For one, the back buttons are impossilbe to fasten on my own which was kind of dumb of me So next time it'll be either side buttons or a side separating zipper. Also, I'll adhere to the way PMB did the front torso darts. With this one, I didn't flare the circumference out to the hem below the waist - instead I kept increasing the dart and this threw the fit off in the front. So, with those two changes I'll try again - maybe in another color? We'll see what's in the stash